Out of doors, darkness and sleet; within the cottage parlor, a grand fire and a good supper, the latter, however, no longer in evidence.

Four people sat round the hearth: a woman not so old in years as aged in looks by what the war had done to her; a burly, bearded, middle-aged man, her brother; a young, rather stern-visaged fellow, the last of her sons; and a girl of twenty or so, with a sedate mouth and bright eyes, her daughter-in-law to be.  The two men were obviously seafarers.  As a matter of fact, the uncle was skipper of an ancient tramp which had somehow survived those three years of perilous passages; the nephew, a fisherman before war, afterwards and until recently in the patrol service, was now mate on the same old ship, though he had still to make his first trip on her.

Said Mrs. Cathles, breaking silence, to her brother: “Did ye see any U-boats comin’ home, Alick?”  Possibly she spoke then just to interrupt her own thoughts, for it was not like her to introduce such a subject.

The skipper was busy charging his pipe.  “Is it U-boats ye’re askin’ about, Maggie?” he said slowly, in his loud voice.  “I’m tellin’ ye, on that last home’ard trip, the peeriscopes was like a forest!”

David Cathles winked to his sweetheart; then p. 158perceiving that the answer had scared his mother, he said:

“Come, come, Uncle!  Surely ’twasn’t quite so bad as that.  ‘A forest’ is a bit thick, isn’t it?”

“Well, there was room for the Hesperus to get through, I’ll allow,” the skipper said, striking a match extracted from his vest pocket, “otherwise I wouldn’t be settin’ here tellin’ the blessed truth every time.”  He lay back and puffed complacently, staring at the fire.

“Never you mind him, Mother,” said the young man.  “’Tis me he’s seekin’ to terrify: he’d just as soon I didn’t sail wi’ him, after all; ’fraid o’ me learnin’ what a poor skipper he is!”

Now David ought to have known better.  People who are good at giving chaff are seldom good at taking it.  The girl, however, was quick to note the stiffening of the burly figure.

“Captain Whinn,” she remarked promptly, but without haste, “ye must be a terrible brave man to ha’ come through all ye ha’ come through, since the war started.”

“Not at all, my dear,” was the modest reply; “I’m no braver’n several cases I’ve heard on.”

David, who had seen his own blunder, was grateful to Esther for the diversion, and sought to carry it further.

“Well, Uncle Whinn,” he said respectfully, “I think we’d all like to hear what yourself considers the pluckiest bit o’ work done by a chap in the Merchant Service durin’ the—”

“Haven’t done it yet.”  With a wooden expression of countenance, the skipper continued to stare at the fire.

Mrs. Cathles spoke.  “Ah, David, ’tis little use p. 159tryin’ to pick the bravest when all is so brave.  But I do think none will ever do braver’n what that fishin’ skipper did—him we was hearin’ about yesterday.”

“Ay, that was a man!” her son agreed.

“What was it?” the girl inquired, with a veiled glance of indignation at Captain Whinn, who appeared quite uninterested, if not actually bored.

“You tell it, David,” said the mother.  “Big moniments ha’ been put up for less.”

“Go on, David,” murmured Esther.

“’Twas something like this,” he began.  “They had hauled the nets and was makin’ for port in the early mornin’, in hazy weather, when a U-boat comes up almost alongside.  I reckon they was scared, for at that time fishin’ boats was bein’ sunk right and left.  Then the commander comes on deck and asks, in first-class English, which o’ the seven was skipper.  And the skipper he holds up his hand like as if he was a little boy in the school.  ‘All right,’ says the ’Un, ‘I guess you can navigate hereabouts—eh?’  The skipper answers slow that he has been navigatin’ thereabouts ’most all his life.  ‘Very well,’ says the ’Un, ‘there’s a way you can save your boat, and the lives o’ them six fine men, and your own.’  He waits for a little while; then he says: ‘This is the way.  You come on board here, and take this ship past the defenses and into —.  That’s all.  I give you three minutes to make up your mind.’

“’Tis said the skipper looked like a dyin’ man then, and all the time one o’ the U-boat’s guns was trained on the fishin’ boat.  ‘Time’s up,’ says the ’Un; ‘which is it to be?’  And the skipper says: ‘I’ll do what ye want.’ I never heard what his p. 160mates said; and I should think their thoughts was sort o’ mixed.  But they puts him on board the U-boat and clears out, as he told them to do; and the last they see of him was him standin’ betwixt two ’Uns, each wi’ a revolver handy.  And then him and the ’Uns goes below, and so does the U-boat.”

“He was surely a coward!” the girl exclaimed.

“Wait a bit,” said David.  “Can’t ye see that he saved the lives o’ his mates?”

“And his own!” she cried.  “And he took the U-boat in!”

“Ay, he did that—and her commander, too!  Oh, he took her in right enough—safe into the big steel net! . . .  They found him there wi’ the dead ’Uns, later on—only he had been murdered.”

Esther clasped her hands.  “None braver’n that!” she said in a whisper.

Mrs. Cathles turned to her brother, who had not altered his attitude, though he had let his pipe go out.

“Alick,” she said, “what do ye say to that?”

“’Twasn’t so bad,” he said softly, “’twasn’t so bad, Maggie.  Ha’ ye any matches?”

Shortly afterwards he took his departure, and then David saw Esther home.

On the way she broke a silence by remarking: “David, I wish ye wasn’t sailin’ wi’ that man.”

“How so?”

“He’s not natural.  Something’s wrong about him.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be sayin’ that, Esther,” said David.  “I allow I can’t make anything o’ Uncle Whinn nowadays, but the war has turned many a man queerish.  Still, I never heard him so boastful-like afore tonight—”

p. 161“‘’Twasn’t so bad,’” she quoted resentfully, “‘’twasn’t so bad!’—and it the bravest thing a human man could do?  Oh, David, I do wish ye wasn’t sailin’ wi’ him, though he is your uncle.  He’s a coward—that’s what he is, I’m sure.”

“I wouldn’t be sayin’ that, neither,” the young man gently protested.  “He’s maybe feared—I surely doubt he is—but that’s not the same as bein’ a coward—not by a long chalk.”

“He’s got neither wife nor family, and he’s oldish,” she persisted.

“But I s’pose life’s sweet even when a man’s oldish.  As for bein’ feared—out yonder wi’ the patrol, I was seldom anything else,” said David quietly.

“David Cathles, I don’t believe ye!”

“I’m feared now; I’ll be feared all this comin’ trip.  Uncle Whinn has got more to be feared o’ ’n me.

“I don’t see that.”

“Well, if a U-boat gets the better o’ the old Hesperus—and she hasn’t got a gun yet—’tis ten to one the ’Uns make a prisoner o’ Uncle Whinn.  ’Tisn’t cheerful to ha’ that on your mind all the time—is it now, Esther?”

“I grant ye that, David,” she said, with unexpected compunction.  “Only he shouldn’t be so big about hisself and so small about the pluck o’ other men.  I’d ha’ said he was feared o’ the very sea itself.”

“A common complaint, my dear!  But now ye ha’ touched on a thing which is maybe only too true, for I could ’most allow my uncle is feared o’ death in the water—not that his fear is aught to be ashamed on.”

p. 162“Not if a man be modest about hisself!”

“Uncle Whinn used to be modest enough, and careless enough, too, about what happened to him,” said David.  “But when I was on board wi’ him, this mornin’, I see a thing so queer and strange, ............